Chapter 4. Changing Object Properties

Chapter 4. Changing Object Properties

The previous chapter discussed browsing media files, which are a type of object, and importing them into your project. Once you have imported objects, the next step is to compose them by adjusting certain properties common to all objects called parameters.

You set a parameter to a specific value at a specific point in time. For example, you may want to change the location of an object in the Canvas (the Position parameter), the size of an object (the Scale parameter), or the orientation of an object (the Rotation parameter). You can change the value of each parameter over time by setting keyframes (see Chapter 7), which is one way of creating animation.

In this chapter, you will learn how to adjust the properties of any object or layer (remember, a layer is an object, too!). These adjustments include a group of parameters called transformations (like Position, Scale, and Rotation); controls for how objects that overlap interact with each other, called blend modes; and settings for applying and adjusting a drop shadow. You can control most of these properties directly in the Canvas, but for more precise control, you use the Properties tab of the Inspector in the Utility pane.